The House Armed Services Committee heard testimony on the legal challenges that are likely to follow last month's ruling by the Supreme Court. By a 5-4 majority, the court ruled detainees at Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their confinement by filing a writ of habeas corpus in federal court.

Some witnesses at the hearing Wednesday said they believed judges in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia hearing the cases ought to have guidance from Congress in the form of a law.

Richard Klingler, general counsel and legal adviser to the White House National Security Council, said civilian judges who hear the detainees' cases need legislative guidance because they are entering previously uncharted waters.

"In their new, undefined role overseeing military functions, civilian judges are likely to draw too directly on (legal) processes and analysis developed to protect U.S. citizens in established criminal proceedings," Klingler said in his prepared testimony. "They are unlikely to appreciate the consequences of their decisions on the formulation of national security policy or the conduct of military options."

In Boumediene vs. Bush, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional part of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which had denied foreigners held at Guantanamo Bay the right to challenge their detention through habeas petitions in federal court, substituting instead appeals against the decisions of the military tribunals that eventually will try them.

Stephen Oleskey, who represented detainees in the Supreme Court case, said the legislative branch would be overstepping its bounds to interfere with the court system at this time. He said it would be best to allow the habeas corpus suits to make their way through the federal court system before trying to fix a process that might not be broken.

"There is no sound reason for Congress to interfere at this time and thereby delay trials that are already far too long deferred and delayed," Oleskey said.

But Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said that whether Congress gets involved in this issue, many other problems remain with the Military Commissions Act.

He said the act impermissibly restricts the Supreme Court's power of review; makes the president the "final arbiter of the Geneva Conventions"; allows the use of coerced testimony in court; does not allow the accused to confront witnesses and evidence; discriminates against detainees for being aliens; and creates laws applied retroactively.

But Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the top Republican on the committee, said he was more concerned with extending too many rights to detainees.

Granting rights to prisoners held in Cuba might translate to giving those rights to enemy combatants in Iraq or Afghanistan, he said. Hunter asked each panelist whether he thought that prisoners taken in war deserved to be read their Miranda rights on the battlefield.

Neal Katyal, professor of law at Georgetown University, rejected the premise that prisoners of war in Iraq and Afghanistan had the same rights as prisoners of the war on terrorism held in Guantanamo.

Katyal said prisoners at Guantanamo had more rights because, unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay has no law other than that of the United States.

(Medill News Service)

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